


When Sweet Violets Sicken

by Aboutnothingness (Thesherlockholmes)



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, HIV/AIDS, M/M, a musing on mortality and giving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25007626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thesherlockholmes/pseuds/Aboutnothingness
Summary: And thus, he will always have more, more, more to give.Until he doesn't.
Relationships: Jim Hutton/Freddie Mercury
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26





	When Sweet Violets Sicken

They’ll say all sorts of things for a story. For a headline. 

  
The truth is sometimes more shocking, in a way. In the way that honesty is sometimes not believed, because the lie is better, leaves more of an impression on your mind. Leaves you wondering, and wanting more, more, more.

  
That is just what he uses. He uses the headlines, even while he dismisses them. Theatrical, they say. He’ll give you theatrical— lights, costumes, poses— everything you’re thinking, you’ll have. It’s completely larger than life, a sort of fantasy, the best sort. The sort where he is wanted, adored. The sort where he knows this without a doubt. The sort where he will not be abandoned, cannot be, because he leaves first and on the ultimate climax. There’s no comedown and that’s what they want, isn’t it? And thus, he will always have more, more, more to give.

  
Until he doesn’t.

  
The reporters are outside- he hears their clamoring, their jeers, their trick use of silence— all day just meters from the window of his bedroom, from his retreat. That is a horrible truth— that he has now retreated, never to re-emerge. A cocoon of sickness and death. Here comes another doomed butterfly— Joe comes in, switches on the set, and sits in the chair set by the bed, newspaper in hand. He glimpses his name on a page ever so fleetingly. Yes, they still want more, more, more. 

  
It’s been a restless night, up and down, back and forth with Phoebe and then Jim— to the bathroom, back to sleep, in a nightmare, terrified awake, repeat and then again. They’ve settled him now, nestled in blankets and pillows, soft and clean, even if it smells faintly of antiseptic. Jim is lying on top of the covers next to him, ready to leave— will he leave? does he want to leave?— but holding him gently. He wants to say that this is not what he wants. That what he wants is passion, a fire, instead of this slow drag he wants more, more, more. But Jim won’t give it to him, he’s too kind a man, too good for Freddie. He must want more, more, more than this failing, decomposing body— for once, Freddie can't give what's desired.

  
The day Jim takes him slowly and carefully down the stairs to look just once more, one final time at the life he’s built and everything he has, Freddie can only think that he wants more time. It’s a painful enough thought, so sudden because until now death was immediately inevitable full stop, and he hadn’t thought beyond that. But now, surrounded by antique objets, art in all forms, he can’t help craving the, now extinguished, joy of living. He wants years with Jim, years of parties and dinners, rows and make up sex, cuddles and quiet nights on the sofa. He wants to make more music, give the world every last thing in himself, feel them love him for it. He wants more of Roger’s laughter, more of Brian’s genius, more of John’s sarcastic wit. He wants to see more of the world, because in fact he’s hardly seen an inch of terra firma properly. He wants more art, all the fine things he has— where will they go? He points out to Jim his favourite pieces, an unsaid insistence of ‘keep these with you, remember me, remember us, but better than this-remember the day we got it, remember that: the scent of cherry blossoms and Japanese tea’. Jim just nods and hums and tightens the grip around his slim waist, pecking a kiss to his forehead. He especially wants more, more, more of just that.

  
They want headlines? Then he’ll give them. A final show, the clear ending. Jim Beach drafts it up, precise and pointed. There, that’s his last word on the matter, on his life. What a thing to end the show with,

_'I can make a bigger bang than that, dear'_

— could it be worse? They have everything now, he has given them more, more, more. Now his entire being is thrown to the starving crows, for them to pick the rotted meat from his carcass. There’s your more, more, more— you’ve had all of me, there’s nothing left.

  
Gone. 

  
(Was I ever there to begin with?)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from:
> 
> Music, when soft voices die,  
> Vibrates in the memory;  
> Odours, when sweet violets sicken,  
> Live within the sense they quicken.
> 
> -from 'Music, When Soft Voices Die', by P.B. Shelley
> 
> Comments welcomed on this experimental piece of prose!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [When Sweet Violets Sicken [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27393640) by [nastally](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nastally/pseuds/nastally)




End file.
